One benefit to open-source applications is they can run on any operating system you want. But getting open-source software developed for the Mac is -- depending on whom you ask -- slow as molasses or quick as lightning. Mac expert Lisa Hoover collected several viewpoints. Which do you think is right?

I'm not positive, but I'd guess that there are a fair number of artist-types (who are reasonably tech savvy) that would be willing to help with UI design if it was easy to do in Linux.

I rant about this occasionally, but I truly believe that people need to start completely separating the UI from the functional code. The desktop UI is more complicated (or at least quite a bit different) from the web, but I think something similar should be possible with the desktop.

For a web designer working with a backend application, they're usually using templates and don't have to mangle HTML in to code. "I have these variables available for my interface, and there are simple constructs for loops, etc." I'd love to write apps that export functionality that someone with little to no programming knowledge could use to plug in a sexy interface.